


And The Universe Said I Love You

by glxybbs



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: <- to an extent. it's not full on but it's not low-key either, Existentialism, M/M, The In-between, Time Travel, the universe speaks to karl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29620353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glxybbs/pseuds/glxybbs
Summary: In which the Universe speaks to Karl in the In-Between--The voice finally spoke, still as gentle and loving as it had spoke before. “	Once, I was called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. I am the beginning and the end; I am everything and I am nothing. I am day, I am night. I am heaven, just as I am hell. I am everything that you think isn’t you. I am the Universe.”
Relationships: Implied/Mentioned - Relationship, Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Kudos: 14





	And The Universe Said I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> this one was inspired by the minecraft end poem, and a playlist full of sad video game music - most notably, 14.3 billion years from Outer Wilds.
> 
> as per, don't send this to any cc, and if any cc is uncomfortable with this i am more than happy to take it down!
> 
> and, just to be safe - i'm gonna bring up that there are mentions of things being real/not real, so if that's something that triggers you please be mindful of that are you're reading!

“I just want to know who I am!” Karl stared up at the sky above the In-between, eyes brimming with tears that wouldn’t fall until he got back home. Some strange force had managed to prohibit crying in the castle, and it was a pain in the ass when the only thing that Karl wanted to do was sob until his chest burned and his eyes were completely dry. “Just let me know who I am- _Please_!” He was screaming, at that point. If there was anyone else in the castle, they would have thought that the newest guest had lost his mind. And, to Karl, they wouldn’t have been that far off.

He fell to his knees in the tower, hands tangled in his knotted hair, eyes squeezed shut. The floor was cold, far too cold for a place that never seemed to leave summer. He was surrounded by books, novels and encyclopaedias created by those who came before and those who came after him. There were hanging plants and lanterns above him, wind chimes catching the light breeze from the open windows, birds singing a song that sounded and felt _so_ familiar. It was the perfect place to have a breakdown. Pretty, if nothing else.

The other versions of himself passed by without saying anything, without even noticing that he was there. He watched himself wake up, look around, read a book, and go wandering - over, and over, and over, and over. The same white hoodie, the brown hair that was in the exact same position every time he passed himself by, the pristine sneakers that were most definitely not his own. There was nothing unique about a single one of the versions of himself that were circling him.

Around him, day and night passed by in seconds. The castle constantly flickered from light to dark, the sun seemed to be dancing with the moon and the stars in the sky, and the colours that painted the world around him were alike those that an artist could only dream of getting their hands on. The castle remained unmoved, despite its place in the sky – not even a breath of wind managed to make it beyond the gleaming white walls. The tree in the centre of the courtyard remained unmoved, as did the two swings that sat before it; Karl had been sat on them a while ago, staring at the place that he had been told to call home, and he hadn’t found much joy in sitting there with nobody to talk to.

“My child,”

Karl jumped, eyes now wide as they had ever been, and looked around him to find the source of the voice. There was nobody around him, which was normal. Nobody was there and nobody would be there, apart from himself. When he was in the In-Between, he only had himself and the vague memories of home. Of Sapnap and Quackity and, to an extent, George. Of the mushrooms that he had spent so long nurturing and growing, of the houses that he had spent so long building, of the grass that he and Sapnap would lay on and cloud watch as Quackity tried to convince them both to do something more fun than just lying down.

“Do not fear me, child. I do not wish to harm you.” The voice was gentle, the tone loving. The room seemed to warm up whenever they spoke and, as much as he hated to link the two together, it made Karl think about Sapnap, about his _actual_ home. “I only desire to aid you in your ventures. That is all.”

Karl looked up, now staring at the sky. The day-night cycle had slowed somewhat in the moments that the strange, disembodied voice had been speaking to him, and he was now watching the sky slowly fade from a myriad of pinks and reds to pitch black. He took a breath, “Who… Who are you?”

The voice was quiet for a moment or two, and Karl began to feel as though he had been left alone again.

The voice finally spoke, still as gentle and loving as it had spoke before. “ Once, I was called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. I am the beginning and the end; I am everything and I am nothing. I am day, I am night. I am heaven, just as I am hell. I am everything that you think isn’t you. I am the Universe.”

Karl nodded, still not quiet believing the words that he was hearing. But, he had no real choice to stop listening to the voice that claimed to be the Universe, because the In-Between was a place where nothing made any kind of sense.

He had learned at one point that the universe never ended, that there were billions of galaxies contained in the single universe that he lived inside, that there were millions of intelligent life forms contained inside each and every single one of those galaxies. George had been ranting about it one night, when neither man could sleep, and George was brewing far too many potions for one man to consume – he told Karl about every constellation that drifted above them, about every planet and every rock that he could speak about before he fell asleep in his seat. Karl hadn’t quite committed it all to memory, or maybe he had? He’d have to look through his diaries whenever he got home to see if he had jotted anything down. If he remembered to do it, that was – he hoped that he would remember.

“You have a question, my child. Speak it.” The Universe’s voice echoed in Karl’s mind, this time it was loud. Karl jumped again; his body tensed as the voice rang through his ears.

Karl stood, slowly, and started to pace up and down the room. He looked at the books, at the plants, at the windows, and at just about everything that he could find to avoid doing what the Universe had told him to do. He was shaking to the point where picking up something as small as a piece of paper seemed like the most impossible task that he could even attempt to accomplish. Instead of trying to grab something to roll about in his hands, Karl stared down at a blank piece of parchment and willed any alternate force that existed in the castle to get the Universe out of his mind.

After a few minutes, Karl decided that there were no alternate forces inside of the castle. It was only the Universe, and the Universe alone. He took a breath, looking back up to the sky, and dropped his shoulders. “Why don’t-… Who am I?”

The universe said, “You are the story, the program, the human. You are alive.”

“That doesn’t help me.” Karl sat back down on the quartz floor, head in his hands. Out of every Deity that he had spoken to, the Universe was probably the least helpful of them all. He knew he was alive; he knew he was a human – those two facts were glaringly obvious to anyone with a pulse. “I want to know why I don’t know who I am. Why am I forgetting the people who I love, an-and myself? Why?”

The Universe was soft as it spoke. “You have yet to learn how to control your movements through time. As we go on and as you train more, you will remember those who you love and, by extension, yourself.”

“Can you at least tell me what I need to do to get to the point where I don’t forget?” Karl mumbled, straight into the heels of his palms. It was getting warmer in the small room, despite the palace now being in its thousandth night cycle since he landed in the courtyard. He could recall night being cold, having to snuggle up in a blanket to keep himself from freezing in his bed – he could remember Sapnap being a human beacon of warmth, and how his fiancé would always claim that ‘being born in the fire’ was the reason that he was never cold. “Tell me how I need to live, Universe. That’s what I want from you.”

“To tell you how to live is to prevent you from living.” The Universe was blunt. “I will not tell you how to live. Ah… I can tell that you grow restless, my child. Would you like a story?”

Karl groaned, hands dropping to his lap. He fell back onto the quartz floor, silently praying that he would impale himself on something, and was rather disappointed that he ended up staring at the night sky once again. It was the same as it always was – constellations, plants, stars, the moon. Nothing was new, nothing was ever new in the In-Between; Karl had learned as much in his ventures. No matter how many times he visited, how many books he stole, how many times he ran circuits around the castle – not a single thing changed. And it was boring, because it was all white, and there weren’t any people to talk to, there were no trees to cut down or caves to explore, there were no oceans to jump into or rivers to swim against the current in. Karl, as much as he appreciated it, decided that he hated the In-Between.

He blinked, and the sky was blue. Great. “I just- I want the truth. Is that too much to ask? I don’t want any dumb stories; I just want to know why I’m here. That’s it. Then, I can go to sleep and wake up at home with my fiancé and I’ll be fine. Everything will be _fine_.”

“You are a new story, you have bever been told before. You’re a new program which has bever been run, and you are generated by a source code that is a billion years old. You are a new human; you have never lived as your peers have lived. As I said before, you are the story, you are the program, you are human. And you are _alive_.”

As the Universe repeated itself, Karl looked at his hands. They were real, he was staring at his hands and- and they were real. It was a stupid thought, because his hands had to be real if he was real, but… He was alive. The In-Between wasn’t heaven or hell or limbo, it was a place where Karl was _alive_. He wasn’t dead, and he started to realise that the fear of death that hung so low over his head was pointless, because the deaths that he had experienced had not been real in any capacity. Karl had never died in the same way that Tommy or Wilbur or Tubbo or Dream had ever died – he had only died in the past, and those deaths didn’t count in the present day because they were never supposed to happen. He recalled feeling a blade drive through his stomach in Sir Billiam’s mansion, and he remembered the fear that he woke up with when he first arrived in the In-Between – but he still had all of his lives when he landed back in his portal room. His deaths meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, his deaths were as impactful to the world as a gentle breeze was to a brick wall. The thought of being so insignificant in the grant scheme of things hurt, because he knew that his name would never be in the history books like Tommy’s was, and his impact on the world would never last as long as Wilbur and Dream’s would – but he was trying to make things better for the people of the future, and that had to count for something, right? Surely it did.

“You will hear me in the sunlight that dances through the trees. You will hear me in the light that falls from the sky in winter, you will see me in the stars that are a million times as massive as the sun. You will realise that I am everywhere, just as I am nowhere. I am everything that you are not, and I am everything that you are.”

Karl looked back at the sky, which was now black again, and he took a breath. He didn’t dare to interrupt the Universe as it spoke, so he waited in an eager silence for it to pick up its story again.

“You are stronger than you think. You are daylight, and you are the night. The Darkness that you fight is within you, and the Light that you seek is within you.” The Universe was getting louder, more thunderous, as it continued on. “You are not alone. You are not separate from every other thing.” 

Despite the increase in volume, Karl found himself growing tired. He yawned, and he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to try and keep himself awake to hear whatever the Universe had to say. The room was warm, the sky was dark, and there wasn’t a single thing around him to keep him from going to sleep. He yawned again, eyes growing heavier, limbs growing less and less willing to move. Despite the floor being made from pure quartz, Karl was the most comfortable that he had ever been.

The Universe spoke in another voice. This time, it was Sapnap who spoke, rather than the soothing voice of the Universe. And it made Karl feel at home, because Sapnap had a particular way of speaking to him when they were being genuine with one another. His voice was low, and soft, and gentle, and lovely in every single sense of the word. For a moment, Karl forgot that the Universe was speaking to him and that he wasn’t at home with Sapnap, cuddled up in a pile of blankets and pillows with his fiancé right beside him, the fire roaring on the opposite end of the room to combat the Winter chill that came from outside. For a split second, Karl swore that he felt Sapnap’s arms wrapping around him, pulling him into the same hug that his fiancé always did at night, the type of hug that said things that both men were too afraid to ever voice themselves. Karl felt like he was home, like he was finally safe and everything was normal again, that the world was back in order and he didn’t have to be the person to throw himself through time to try and fix the fuck-ups that everyone else seemed to ignore.

And, using Sapnap’s voice, the Universe said, “And I love you, because _you are love_.”

**Author's Note:**

> i honest to god didn't know how to end it, so i hope that the ending i gave it was okay dhgsgs. lmk what you think in the comments and leave a kudos if u enjoyed, i appreciate every single one!! also i spent like twenty minutes trying to figure out html because i forgot the rich text option was there,,, i don't wanna talk about it.
> 
> u can find me on twitter if u wanna - @iesbianenderman c:


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